Julien Mauve

Julien Mauve‘s series ‘The Island of Dragonflies’ (L’île aux libellules), 2016-2018 – a story about mysteriously disappeared civilization, where merging myths with science-fiction future in cinematic images, the artist questions our current relationship with natural environment.

Julien Mauve – The Island of Dragonflies

“HyBrazil is a phantom island, appearing in different locations on nautical charts as early as 1325. Many stories exist of encounters with the island. According to the legend, it is a cradle of an advanced society that has remained hidden until our days, veiled as it is by thick fog, which has kept it from being discovered. In 1850, the island disappears from every maps completely.

I went searching for this mysterious island and found it in Japan. These 21 pictures in the series come from the Island of Dragonflies (Akitsu Shima), the name of which echoes nature’s powerful place in the Japanese imagination. On this island, humans seem to have suddenly disappeared. What remains are some sorts of ruins, lost in the middle of abundant nature which seems to retake its rights. Have these sites been definitely abandoned or just isolated from the rest of humanity?”